"Unfortunately, Cameron's declaration that the 'free flow of information' can sometimes be a problem, then an aberration, seems to have turned into a pillar of the UK government's 2012 agenda. Despite declaring early on in his term that internet freedom should be respected 'in Tahrir Square as much as Trafalgar Square', his government is now considering a series of laws that would dramatically restrict online privacy and freedom of speech." The United Kingdom's crippling nanny state culture reaches the web. A country in deep financial problems, facing pervasise social unrest, censors the web to prevent riots. Sure Cameron, make it so.

EVERYBODY (even criminals) should have the right for privacy.
Police states do not work(tm)
In a democracy you have to live with the fact that some criminals run free. That is the price of freedom. Everybody who thinks otherwise needs to get his brain checked.
The alternative is criminalizing innocent people, which must an _absolute_ no-go in a real democracy.

I in part agree with you, but surely you concede that there has to be a balance?

For example, if someone is going online and purchasing all the components needed to make a large amount of explosives, do you not think it is reasonable for the state (police) to be able to investigate them in order to establish their intentions/targets? They would of course then invade the persons privacy should they need to search the persons home if needed. I think this is a concession that is acceptable in Any democracy.

The person would then go through the courts as normal with the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven

"Balance" brings up ideas of 50/50 and of some kind of mediated compromise. The underlying argument here is "The government needs more powers to catch criminals". In theory, if the government didn't have to obey any law, they could catch every criminal but would of course catch every law abiding citizen. There are two problems with this: #1: The argument is wrong, the government doesn't need any more powers to catch criminals. Evidence: They are catching plenty of criminals. The other problem is this: The government does not always use the powers given to it to catch criminals to actually catch criminals. So, to be clear, for me, (I am not the orignal poster), I do _NOT_ want balance! I want the electorate to be distinctly and definitely more powerful than the government that it elects, in the same way that I want to be more powerful than my dishwasher, a tool I use to wash my dishes.

I in part agree with you, but surely you concede that there has to be a balance?

Well, to me the balance is already there. The balance between "wanting to catch criminals" and "absolute privacy" is supervised access through court orders. It's not like getting a warrant is impossible, to the contrary, but then there is an official paper trail and requesting a warrant requires just enough effort to prevent most misuse of power.